The ATSC digital broadcast standard for digital television allows for the transmission of 19 Mbits/sec in an RF channel having a 6 MHZ bandwidth. Although this allocated bandwidth is adequate for a single analog NTSC television channel, the ATSC bit rate permits the same channel to support the concurrent transmission of several standard definition television (SDTV) programs (i.e., programs displayable with a resolution comparable to that of the NTSC analog program). Alternatively, the allocated bandwidth at the ATSC bit rate permits a channel to support the transmission of a single high definition television (HDTV) program at a time. Moreover, the ATSC digital broadcast standard permits data to be transmitted in the channel along with the digital program being transmitted. Therefore, data packets may be multiplexed in the channel with video and audio packets of one or more of the programs.
While channel guides in the form of a table displayed on a dedicated channel and providing channels, titles, and show times, currently exist for analog television programming, none exist which provide a similar guide or key for digital television as to the type of data transmitted on various channels. Moreover, no channel or data guides exists which enable various entries in the guide to be selected by a user for access to further information.
The present invention contemplates using the data transmission feature of the ATSC standard in order to transmit data guide information in the data packets. The data guide may include identifying information as to the channels under which data is transmitted with the digital VSB broadcast signals, as well as the type of data provided on each channel. The invention further contemplates displaying the transmitted data guide in a format enabling a user to select and access the data on any of the displayed channels.